In Arcadia
by Jordy Trent
Summary: In truth, it had seemed only a short step from Egypt's timeless, arid sands to the unforgiving back streets of Europe, and then from there to here. Here being Croft Manor, or rather the grounds in which it once stood... PostAoD fic. LaraKurtis.
1. Prologue

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IN ARCADIA

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**_**Prologue

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_In England_

"You know, I think I just might…" Lara's words hang in the smoky air.

The mischievous smile drains from her face as she looks around her in the gathering dawn, the approaching splendor of the sunrise marred by great clouds of billowing grey. "How did we _get_ here?"

A remnant of a smile on his own face, Kurtis runs his hand wearily through his hair and shrugs.

In truth, it had seemed only a short step from Egypt's timeless, arid sands to the unforgiving back streets of Europe, and then from there to here. _Here_ being Croft Manor, or rather the grounds in which it once stood.

The first rays of sunlight reveal the extent of the destruction. Lara leans heavily against the tall iron gates which alone are standing upright- bracketed by a few remaining metres of wall on either side, whereas every other brick in the place is smashed and fallen.

She turns to glance back through the bars, thinking sadly of the irreplaceable treasures that lie lost beneath the rubble. But perhaps some of them _can_ be salvaged; the Infada Stone and its surviving companions at least, hewn from rock that fell blazing out of a primeval sky, have been through worse.

And in any case, a greater loss weighs on her mind.

Kurtis snugs his one intact arm around her waist and draws her away from the smouldering ruins as Father Bram Patrick Dunstan comes up alongside them, white hair badger-striped with soot. He looks warmly down into the face of the woman he baptized as a tiny infant.

"Your father will be here to collect you soon, Lara." He turns to Kurtis. "I imagine he's looking forward to meeting _you_, young man."

Kurtis looks vaguely terrified, and the priest can't suppress a smile. It fades, though, as he says to Lara: "I'll be in contact. We'll need to discuss arrangements for the funeral."

"Winston," she says sorrowfully.

"Take heart, Lara. We'll meet him again, in a better place."

Kurtis smiles down at her. Lara embraces Father Dunstan gingerly, careful of both their bruises, and he steps away giving the two youngsters a moment of privacy.

Kurtis wipes a smear of dirt from Lara's face with his thumb, and she does the same for him. Briefly, they lean against one another, eyes half-closed.

"So, who do you think was worse, Karel or Semira?" asks Lara.

He groans. "Not much to choose between them, I'd say," he replies.

Something lying on the blackened ground, brighter, catches Kurtis' eye. He bends down and lifts the bronze rectangle awkwardly, one-handed from the charred rubble, blowing on it to remove ashes and brickdust.

"'_Once and future adventurer_,'" he reads aloud. "Here. You should keep this. Kinda appropriate."

She takes it from him, smiling a little as she tucks it under one arm.

A low purring sound announces the arrival of a dark blue Bentley, which swings onto the drive with a crunch of gravel. A uniformed chauffeur gets out first, followed by a tall, elegant man with a clipped moustache and graying hair, but with expressive brown eyes, just like his daughter's.

"Good God," he says softly when he sees the devastation. "Deborah would have had a fit." He means his late aunt, the only one who refused to abide by the family's disownment and bequeathed her home to Lara.

They don't hug. It's been too long, and there are too many things to be said first. They settle instead for a clasping of hands, before Lord Croft turns to Kurtis and shakes his hand, amiably if formally. Inevitably, his eyes go to the other arm, the one that has no hand because it ends at the elbow, the stump clumsily swathed in bloodied bandages.

"What the devil…?"

"Long story, sir," says Kurtis wearily. "The doctors say they'll be able to fix me up with a pretty good prosthetic, though."

They all pile into the car and Lord Croft raps smartly on the dashboard. "Let's be off," he orders, and the Bentley pulls smoothly away.

"Your mother's eager to see you," he tells Lara. "She's spent the morning preparing your old bedroom. And the grand guest room," he adds to Kurtis.

"Aww, no funny business?" murmurs Kurtis, so only Lara can hear. She elbows him lightly in the ribs, and he winces.

The car turns out onto the main road, heading for Wimbledon. Kurtis leans back against the padded leather and shakes his head in semi-bewilderment.

"How _did_ we get here, Lara?"

She closes her eyes and tries to remember.

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Disclaimer: I don't own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, or any of the characters therein, nor am I making any money from this fic. Eidos Interactive are the only ones who get to abuse those privileges.  
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**As I started writing this about two years ago, I thought it was about time I posted it. It's sort of a counterpart to my other AoD continuation fic Reborn in Shadow-which I have NOT given up on-it's just giving me a hard time at the moment. **

**I have to thank 'Akkon' for opening my eyes to the possibilities of writing in the present tense, which I don't think I'd have dared to do unless I'd read her excellent "Folly". **

**Since Legend has now been released, with its horribly tampered-with backstory for Lara, I'd better make it clear that as an old school Tomb Raider fan, I'm sticking strictly to the original bio (the one where she survives the plane crash at age 21 and is subsequently disowned by her parents, who are still very much alive.)**

**As always, I'll be very grateful for feedback. Review, you know you want to...**

**Jordy xx**


	2. Reunion

_**Part I: Interlude  
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'**Reunion'

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**

_In Prague_

Blood.

So much blood…the floor underneath her feet was slick with it. It seeped through the circular holes in the metal flooring, making scarlet swirls in the water beneath. Lara's eyes narrowed momentarily in distaste, and she stood for a moment, trying to imagine what had happened there. Then, bending down, she slowly scooped up Kurtis' strange weapon, her mind still running scenarios.

Suddenly, the disk came to life in her hands, and she experienced a mild shock as the blades extended of their own accord. The weapon twisted strangely, humming, tugging her insistently first this way, then that, and finally in the direction of the large, darkened hallway. A faint smile illuminated Lara's features as she followed its urging.

The hallway was dark indeed. After she had gone a few metres, she couldn't see a thing, and she found herself wishing for one of the flares she had always carried with her on expeditions. Kurtis could be lying, injured and unconscious, close by in the dark, and she'd never know unless she actually tripped over him. Lara passed a hand across her eyes; they still hurt from the explosion of searing white light that had signaled the end of the Sleeper minutes before, just as her ears still rang with Karel's shattering howl of pain and rage.

She continued walking. Mercifully, after a few more moments, she found she could make out the rough metal of the walls to either side. The hallway was coming to an end, opening out into a huge cargo bay like the one she'd entered the fortress through. Large grey containers littered the area, and a high metal walkway ran along an entire wall to her left, linked to the floor by a narrow ladder. On the far side, another hallway was visible, identical to the one she stood in. Could Kurtis have come through here? If he was badly injured, as was almost certainly the case, it was hard to see how he could have got this far alone. Scanning the bay, Lara detected no sign of movement, friendly or otherwise.

She glanced down at the disk, now lying dormant in her hand.

"Come on..." she murmured, raising it in the air."Help me find him..." but it remained still and unresponsive. A corner of her mouth quirking in resignation, Lara quickly considered her options. In the absence of a clear lead, she decided to simply follow the way ahead and look out for signs of Kurtis as she went.

_Be careful, Lara_...she mentally warned herself. Eckhardt may have been dead, and Karel defeated, at least for now, but others of their accomplices could still be here. Caution was definitely called for. Flattening her back against the cold metal, she leaned out and peered warily around the corner before moving into the open area. She listened for a moment, then slid forward. It seemed safe enough.

The mazelike loops and turns of the Strahov's long corridors were silent, with no sign of enemy or ally. With an unpleasant feeling of being the only rat left on the sinking ship, she quickened her pace.

When she reached the dark outside it was an entirely different story. Men in uniform, armed, were milling everywhere, accompanied by bristling Alsatians.

She drew back against the wall, biting her lip. Presumably it wouldn't be long until they started investigating the fortress, but even if they found their way through into the lower reaches, Eckhardt's lab had been pulverized along with the mortal remains of the Alchemist himself- and the Glove. She doubted there would be enough evidence to exonerate her. The whole thing sounded like something out of the X-Files anyway. _And what would that make me-Scully, alone and Mulder-less?_

No, she could not afford to consider the police her friends. She sought out the shadows and moved stealthily away, the falling snow covering a multitude of footprints.

x x x

Her return to England, like the previous one, had been unglamorous, born out of nothing more than the fact that she simply didn't know what else to do. Bone-weary, needing to remain anonymous, she'd retrieved the late Cleaner's jeep and driven to the nearest port.

Having no money left, she had purred and batted her lashes at the grizzled captain of a cargo ship, promising "payment" that he'd never receive, since she'd slipped from the hold and disappeared into the night like a cat the minute the ship docked at Portsmouth.

She had scouted round the loading area, but the only lorry driver who'd been willing to give her a lift had insisted that she sit with him in the front, looking her up and down and grinning in a way that made her feel dirty. So rather than spend the journey keeping his paws off her, she'd ended up walking all the way back to Surrey along the A3, a journey that took most of the night, face lowered against the cold and lashing rain with only the occasional rumble of passing trucks for company. Then, since her key was probably inside a Rottweiler somewhere in Paris, she'd found herself in the unenviable position of having to break into her own house.

The drainpipe running up the outside wall of her bedroom had seen better days, but it held her weight-just. It had started to wrench itself away from the brick as she swung sideways and grabbed for the balcony railing. Halfway through the window, she was just beginning to congratulate herself on an effective break-in when a white light shone straight into her eyes, blinding her.

She squinted into the dazzling glare. Holding a hand in front of her beleaguered eyes, at the edges of the light she could just about make out a menacing shape, something long and thin with a circular, spiked end.

_Since when did I keep a mace in the house? _she thought, alarmed, not liking her weary body's chances of defending itself against such a fearsome weapon.

"Halt! Friend or foe?" came a reedy but determined voice from beyond the light.

"Winston!" said Lara, torn between relief and annoyance. She dropped stiffly to the carpet. "I thought I'd sent you on an extended leave of absence?"

Winston flicked off the torch and drew himself up as much as his arthritic back would allow. "In fact you did, Miss Croft, but I came to you along with this house, and until I die or it falls to the ground, I intend to remain here. Besides, someone had to feed the fish…"

He shuffled over to the light switch. As yellow illumination flooded the room, she got a good look at the object he was still clutching in his other hand. It was white, and the "spikes" on the end were in fact clusters of bristle.

She plucked it out of his hand. "A toilet brush? I see. Presumably, your plan was to cause me to collapse with laughter and then beat me to death with the bristly end."

"It was the only thing to hand at the time, Miss Croft," replied Winston with dignity.

He had kept her bed fresh, the pillows plumped and the lavender-scented sheets neatly turned down. She'd never quite had the heart to tell him that she didn't like lavender; he'd been using it since Great-Aunt Deborah slept in this room as a young woman.

Collapsing into the bed without even bothering to wash first, she slept for hours without dreaming.

x x x

The next day was one of those brilliantly clear winter mornings that looked warm until you stepped out into it, blazing sun and not a cloud in the cornflower blue sky.

Turning off the flow of water, Lara leant back against the cool shower tiles and stared moodily out at the wooden towers of her assault course. It would have been all too easy to forget the whole thing, Kurtis, Nephilim and all, and head off to South America on some random artifact-gathering quest. But that would have been mere circumvention; everything that had happened in her life during the past four years had led her to this point, and if there was one thing Lara Croft believed, it was that things started should be also finished.

The only question was _how_ to finish it.

The next few days, which seemed to merge endlessly into one another, were spent recuperating and trying to work out her next move. Chafing at the uncertainty and forced confinement, she drifted from room to room, snapping at a patient, undeserving Winston whenever he crossed her path. Waiting for something, _anything_, to happen.

She scanned the news channels several times a day for word of Kurtis and found none. His deadly disk sat on her _chaise longue_ all the while, unresponsive to her repeated pokings and proddings, like a sullen dog that would acknowledge no voice but that of its master.

Living like a prisoner made her mood steadily worse, so that even Winston started to arrange his duties to keep himself out of her way. Boredom and anxiety combined to key her up to such a pitch that when the alarm system began wailing in the small hours and her window crashed inwards in a shower of glass, it was a relief.

She was wide awake on the instant, kicking back her bedcovers. Her pistols were in her hands a split second later, targeting unhesitatingly the dark shapes dotted all over her balcony and moving towards her with trained precision. She dived sideways, opening fire.

The skirmish was brief and its outcome inevitable; she was hopelessly outnumbered and without room to maneuver. Still she managed to pick several of them off before her pistols clicked empty, and she found herself backed up against the remains of her French windows with better than half a dozen assault rifles targeting her head.

She steeled herself, but the expected _coup de grace_ didn't come. She was at their mercy, but they weren't advancing.

_Orders to capture and not kill, perhaps? _

The one closest to her confirmed her thoughts. "I'm afraid you'll have to come with us, Miss Croft."

_Interesting. It seems someone wants me alive…_

She decided to test the theory. Snatching up the disk, she laced her fingers through the holes, and brought it up to her own throat.

Gritting her teeth, she willed the thing to obey her. To her shocked relief it sparked and quivered and the blades actually sprang out. Why it should choose _this_ moment to animate itself she had no idea, but she was glad it had. She held it threateningly close to her jugular, and just as she thought, the men backed off, shooting apprehensive glances at each other. But it was still a stalemate.

Just as she was thinking this, a hand fell on her shoulder without warning, and another clamped firmly over her mouth. She struggled furiously, to no avail; she was dragged backwards onto the balcony, her arms pinned against her sides. Silently, she cursed herself for letting one of them get behind her.

As she fought to free herself, she felt the disk being pulled from her hand, and a masculine voice sounded close to her right ear.

"That's mine, I think...Ms. Croft." Its master's voice.

The grip on her arms was released simultaneously, and Lara whirled round to face someone she'd almost given up hope of seeing again, large as life and apparently unharmed.

He spared her a quick grin, then turned and fired rapidly over her shoulder at the other men, the disk darting in ahead of his bullets to blaze a trail of fiery disorientation, whirring from one man to another and leaving spurting red in its wake.

"Timely," was all she said before her well-honed survival instincts kicked in, and pulling herself together, she mimicked his actions. Their combined firepower made short work of their enemies, whose bodies were soon strewn all over her bedroom floor.

The now-bloodied disk curved a lazy arc back to the upraised hand of the man behind her, who holstered his gun and tossed his dark hair out of his intense blue eyes.

"Hey, Lara. How've you been?" said Kurtis Trent casually.

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Thanks and donuts to everyone who reviewed chapter one! I think it may have confused a few people, so just to explain-chapter 1 is the very _end _of the story, the aftermath, and the rest of it is effectively one long flashback showing how they got to that point, OK:) **

**It was actually Star Wars that inspired me to do that. I was watching the prequels and loving the way they lead closer and closer to the status quo we know so well, at the start of the original trilogy. Doing it "backwards" in that way gave the whole thing, for me, a special kind of emotional resonance (I admit to getting quite choked up when I watched babies Luke and Leia being delivered to their new homes, to the accompaniment of their familiar theme music) That's why I thought I'd try a similar structure with this fic.**

**It's my 28th birthday in a week. Review and give me an early present! **

**Jordy xx **

(can you tell I'm not much of a Legend fan...?)


	3. Advent

**-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
'Advent'  
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"Kurtis," she said in delayed shock.

"The one and only," he replied, looking entertained by her astonishment.

His phrasing triggered something in her mind, and all of a sudden a horrible suspicion came crashing over her. Her eyes narrowed.

The next thing Kurtis knew, he was flat on his back on a carpet of broken glass, one of her feet stamped down on his Chirugai hand, her gun jammed into his forehead.

"Prove to me you really are Kurtis," she hissed.

"Who the hell else would I be?" he replied in shocked anger.

"You tell me."

They stared at each other. Under any other circumstances, he'd have been only too happy to have her astride him.

Lara, for her part, was just thinking that this was her second deadlock of the day, when an unseen hand shoved her forcefully in the stomach, making her gasp and lose her balance.

Kurtis twisted, throwing her off him and climbing back to his feet. "Damn, my back is torn to bits here!"

Scrambling upright, Lara paused, frowning. "Turn around," she demanded, levelling her gun at him. He did so, scowling, and he was telling the truth after all, because the back of his shirt was peppered with tiny holes and tears, through which torn flesh could be glimpsed, from which spots of blood were seeping. Blood, drawn by small shards of glass, whereas high-calibre ordnance had had no effect whatsoever on...

On the _real_ Nephili.

She sighed and lowered her weapon.

Kurtis gave her a long, hard, and not very friendly stare. "Don't do that again, will you?"

"Sorry," she muttered ungraciously.

"What's with you anyway? I thought you might be happy to see me."

She was silent for a few moments. She _should_ have been happy, the moment spoiled by Karel's legacy of deception and mistrust.

She realised she was staring into thin air, and composed herself. Lifting her chin, she spoke more calmly. First things first. "Eckhardt is dead, Kurtis."

He nodded in grim satisfaction, blue eyes narrowing behind their fringe of dark hair. "You got him for me, Lara."

"Not me," she replied. "Karel. Karel killed him in the end."

"_Joachim_ Karel?" said Kurtis incredulously. At Lara's nod, he said, "But he worked for Eckhardt!"

"That's what Eckhardt thought as well. But Kurtis, Karel was...is…one of the Nephilim. He can change shape at will. He killed my friend Von Croy while in Eckhardt's form - he even became you, for a few minutes. To confuse me."

Kurtis frowned. "So that's why you…" he trailed off. "Then it could have been Karel who murdered my father," he said, his voice hardening.

Lara looked at him in sympathy. "Kurtis, we may never know either way."

He closed his eyes and thudded his head against the wall. "Lux Veritatis myths always said the Nephilim were shapeshifters, but I never believed it…damn it, _damn _it."

"He actually asked me to join him. In a - how did he phrase it? A 'benign new world order.'"

The expression on Kurtis' face told Lara he didn't believe that any more than she had. "So he's still alive then?" he queried.

Lara shook her head slowly. "I think so," she said. "I did destroy the Sleeper, using Eckhardt's Glove together with the Sanglyph. There was an explosion, and I ran. It looked as though Karel was caught up in it, but...from what I know of the Nephilim, they're not that easy to get rid of."

"Right. Karel is still out there somewhere. That won't have been enough to kill him," said Kurtis, brows constricting ominously. "This isn't over, Lara," he added, glaring past her into the dark night.

"What isn't over?" demanded Winston from the doorway. Kurtis raised an eyebrow at the portly, striped-pyjama-clad form, and at the hearth sweeper in his hand.

"Enough of the creative weapons, Winston." Lara brushed strands of hair out of her face and adopted a formal tone - which, to Kurtis, seemed at odds with the circumstances, but then, that was the English for you, always standing on ceremony - "This is Kurtis Trent."

The butler eyed the new arrival with lingering suspicion. "I thought you might be in trouble, Miss Croft." His gaze fell onto the bodies strewn over the floor.

"That's all right, Winston. Why don't you just go downstairs and make us all a cup of tea - "

"Coffee," interjected Kurtis.

" - coffee, and then see about getting a room ready for our new guest?"

Winston nodded and departed, mumbling something about, "Blood on the carpet, always blood on the carpet..." They heard his slow progress down the stairs.

"Karel," Kurtis muttered. "I thought he was just their investment and recruitments guy."

"And their lawyer."

"Lawyer?" said Kurtis tightly. "My God, we really are dealing with evil in its purest form, aren't we."

Bloodstained and exhausted as she was, she couldn't help but laugh.

He straightened, grinning confidently. "You_ are_ pleased to see me."

x x x

"So what's your story?"

He gave her a questioning glance over the rim of his mug.

"Boaz...there was blood all over the floor. I came back for you. I thought you were injured!"

"I'll say. Bitch stabbed me right through the stomach," he said darkly.

"Then how..."

"I don't know," said Kurtis abruptly. He stood up, shoving his chair back with a screech of wood on tile. "I've got powers, Lara, you know? All the Lux have them...had them. You've seen me do things. With my mind."

He turned away, leaning heavily on the counter, his shoulder blades hunched. "I tried to get control, to stop the bleeding. But I couldn't. Just didn't have the strength. Everything went black. Next thing I knew, I was in one of the labs, right at the centre of the complex. I still don't know how I got there. I tried to call the Chirugai - " he nodded at the disk that lay on the table between them, and Lara smiled faintly.

"What happened then?"

"I blacked out again. When I came round, I was...healed." He caught her incredulous look. "Yeah, I know. Don't know else to describe it, though."

"Completely healed?" Lara said thoughtfully.

"There's not a scratch on my body," Kurtis confirmed. "Not only that, but I feel better than I have done since this whole thing started. It's like I just got back from vacation or something."

"Oh, how nice," said Lara, deadpan, remembering her own bruises. But she smiled to herself. Lara Croft and brushes with death were hardly strangers to one another, but she had already lost one friend through this Nephilim business. She was deeply thankful that Kurtis hadn't been another casualty.

"It's quite somethin', isn't it?" he said grimly.

"Something," she assented quietly. "A mystery, then."

"Yeah. Another one."

They stared at each other, barely noticing that Winston had come in and was fussing around them, gathering up plates and mugs.

"You said Eckhardt was the original Black Alchemist. How did he get like that, Kurtis?"

"He was always a headcase, but then he spent five hundred years in a big, dark pit...courtesy of the Lux Veritatis. And when he got out, well...that's when he started hunting us down."

"Your father?"

"He was one of the last. That just left Vasiley...and then me."

"Why didn't you try to stop Eckhardt earlier?"

"I was outta the picture for a good while." He broke eye contact, speaking with such finality that Lara decided against further questions - for the time being.

For a few moments there was silence, broken only by the steady tick of the kitchen clock, the creak of old wood, the lapping of water against the sides of the plunge pool, just beyond the door...the familiar nighttime voices of Croft Manor, intercut with the clinking and splashing of Winston doing the washing up.

Kurtis stretched and yawned."I've been travelling all night. I need some sleep, if that's OK."

"Go up the main stairs to the left-your room is second door on the right," she replied.

His expression changed into one she remembered very well; an uneven, cocky grin. "You mean I don't get to check out the master bedroom?"

Behind her stony glare, she was laughing at his sheer nerve, but she was damned if she'd let him see it. "Goodnight, Kurtis."

He held both hands up in mock defeat. "OK, but tomorrow, I'd like to see the rest of this place of yours." He turned back towards the kitchen table, then frowned. "Hey, where's my Chirugai?"

They looked at each other in mild alarm, then as one, turned in the butler's direction."Ahh, Winston?" called Lara. " Did you pick up something round with..."

She trailed off; too late. The lethal weapon was perched on the draining board, incongruous amid the fine bone china, scrubbed to a shine and dripping soapy water.

"Clean as a whistle," announced Winston.

Kurtis groaned and clapped a hand to his forehead.

x x x

The first thing she saw when she looked out into the morning was his Harley, crouched on the gravel just outside the gates, oblivious to the rain that lashed it from all sides. She eyed it at length, wondering whether it would be a match for her Streetfighter in a straight run. She had the feeling she'd find out soon enough.

Half an hour later, Kurtis met her on the landing, bright-eyed, freshly showered, but unshaven. It had been a couple of years since she'd had a houseguest, and even longer since a houseguest was a potential...

_What?_ Not boyfriend; that sounded adolescent. At any rate, she wasn't completely sure how to proceed. He had got the better of her in more ways than one on their first encounter, depriving her not only of her weapons, but also of her composure. In Prague, she had neatly turned the tables on him. Of course, that was before they had become allies...

_Still, nothing wrong with a little healthy competition_, she told herself. And they were on her home territory now, which gave her the tactical advantage...

Kurtis broke into her thoughts."What are you grinning at?"

"Oh, nothing..."

As they headed for the Library, the butler shuffled purposefully towards them, carrying a bundle of brightly coloured dusters. If Lara was honest with herself, she knew that most of the heavier household tasks were beyond him, but he was happy enough pottering round, like a contented old cat who was too old and stiff to do anything serious about the mice anymore, but who no-one would ever dream of getting rid of.

Kurtis tossed off a casual salute as they passed. "Yo, Winston!"

"Yo, young sir."

"I'm glad you're not holding a grudge from last night," said Lara.

Kurtis patted the Chirugai protectively. "I'll just make sure to keep it with me at all times from now on."

"At least it's clean now."

"It's eight hundred years old," he said darkly. "It's never been _washed up_ before."

He didn't seem overly enthusiastic about the Library - _probably not the bookish type_, thought Lara, although he did show some interest in the first editions of her own books, displayed in pride of place…by Winston, of course.

Kurtis picked _Slaying Bigfoot_ off the shelf. "I've actually read this one. Once, to pass the time when I was on leave…kinda sensationalist, isn't it?" He grinned to show he was teasing.

"That's the idea. It sells. But wait - 'on leave'? Were you in the military?"

"French Foreign Legion. Now that's a story…"

He was more impressed by the swimming pool with its frolicking, frescoed dolphins. The quad bike track met with his approval as well, and he had challenged her to a race round the assault course by the time they reached the second tower:

"And no planting your butler to trip me up, either…"

"As if I'd need to!" she had scoffed, but it had been a close thing, only her intimate knowledge of the leaps and turns giving her the final edge.

By the time they came back into the house, faces flushed from the exercise and the keen wind, he was frowning again as he looked all around him.

"All of this is great, but I got a feeling you're holding out on me."

"Excuse me?"

He winked at her. "Where do you keep your loot, Lara?"

x x x

She pulled down on the lever, but even as she turned, tensing herself for the dash across the hall, her ears missed the familiar rumble of the door's descent. Then she saw him, standing nonchalantly a few feet from the newly-created entrance, one hand raised in the air.

"In a hurry, Lara?"

"Fine," she said flatly. "Spoil my fun."

He released his mental hold on the heavy oak as they stepped down into the hidden room, and it closed, sealing them into a cool, dark sanctuary.

It was almost like being underwater, with the marine light playing over the walls and ceiling. The vivid blue of the display cases drew the eye, but most of the illumination was coming from the centre of the room, from an open-front case where five artefacts reclined on perspex stands of differing height.

Lara looked around her, face grave, at the rest of her neglected children: the shattered pieces of the Scion; the Mask of Tornarsuk, the Iris, suspended in pale blue liquid as its various parts spun endlessly around each other. Before Egypt she used to come in here every day just to stand and stare, a mother hovering proudly over her precious, sleeping infants. It had been a while.

She came to the last case, drawing her fingers lightly over the cool hard glass. The most beautiful? Perhaps not. Her favourite? Definitely. The Dagger of Xian; she never tired of watching it tumble serenely, end over end in its captive miniature ocean.

Kurtis, moving round the perimeter of the room, paused in front of the Philosopher's Stone, mounted on the wall beneath the massive jaws of _Tyrannosaurus Rex_. "Bet our late friend Eckhardt would have loved to get his hands on this one..."

She glanced at him, amused. "Not many people have seen inside this room. The ones that have usually mention the dinosaur first."

"I've seen things with way bigger teeth than that in my time."

"Have you, now?"

He joined her, looking around him with enthusiasm. "Great collection!"

"The showpiece isn't even here any more," she commented ruefully.

He looked at her, raising heavy dark brows.

"The Ark of the Covenant."

He let out a low whistle. "The Lux once spent nearly a hundred years looking for that…they thought its legendary power might help them overcome the Cabal."

A smile touched the corners of her mouth. "Well, apparently they were digging in the wrong place."

"What happened to it?"

"It's on permanent loan to an Israeli museum. I would have loved to have kept it here, but…well. Cultural heritage. It was important to them."

He nodded, then wandered over to the centerpiece, drawn by the subtle greenish radiance. "Kryptonite?" he asked jokingly.

"You're not far off, actually."

He stretched out a hand. "Can I?"

"Be my guest."

She watched with interest as he reached out. _Bet he goes for-yes! It looks a lot like…_

"It reminds me of my Periapt Shard," he said, giving voice to her thoughts.

"It's called the Ora Dagger," Lara said softly. "It's very old..."

His eyebrows rose slightly at the unfamiliar name. "It's beautiful. Neat." He grinned at her over his shoulder, turning the artefact over with care. Translucent, crystalline, it glowed mutedly in his hands, illuminating the hard contours of his face with dappled aquamarine.

Finally, he replaced it on its pedestal. "Awesome," he said.

"But I like this one best," she said, picking up lizard-shaped Element 115. "It's the closest I come to having a pet."

"What about those fish down in the basement?"

"They don't count."

He grinned. "Tell you what, if we get through this Nephilim thing...I won't need the Chirugai any more, and I'll donate it to your collection."

"Thank you. I'll commission a little plaque with your name on it."

x x x

Thirty minutes later, they had settled in the dining room, staring at one another across the mahogany wood of the long table, preparing for the conversation that they had been putting off all day.

Kurtis leaned forward, holding her gaze.

"Lara, there were _three_ Sleepers. Three that my father and Vasiley, that the last Lux Veritatis, knew about. You've killed one of them. Karel, he's probably still out there, somewhere. He may have been weakened, but he'll recover in time." Kurtis paused. "That still leaves one more."

Silence. His brow furrowed in apprehension. Watching him, she realised that deep down, she'd been hoping that he'd have some kind of plan, would know what to do next, but she could see now that he was just as afraid and confused as she is. Not that either of them would openly admit to it. Suddenly, she felt very tired.

"The Periapt Shards?" she said.

He thought it over, and nodded. "What happened to them?"

"They were in the Lab when it exploded.The whole thing came down."

Kurtis sucked in his breath. "We need to get them back. If we can…"

Somehow, they'd meshed into a team again, their paths merging as if it were the most natural thing in the world. To her own slight surprise, Lara found that she didn't resent this at all. He'd better watch out, though…

Aloud, she said, "And the Sanglyph? Karel probably took it with him, if he got out of there. It _was_ meant to revive the Nephilim, wasn't it?"

Kurtis leaned his head into his hand, half-covering his eyes, rubbing at his forehead.

The rain flung itself at the window, the wind howled. Looking out through the darkened glass, Lara caught a glimpse of the cold outside, the black branches of her own hedge seeming alien and menacing as they threshed up and down in the wind, leaves flattened.

"We need to get the Shards," Kurtis repeated. "It's our only option. We're not safe here, Lara. We're not safe anywhere..."

Another silence, this one more uneasy than the last, until he spoke again, softly: "By the way...thanks."

Lara frowned, trying to place his words in the context of their conversation."For what?"

The blue eyes were open and guileless. "Coming back for me."

She opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again. He had effectively disarmed her. Round three to him.

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**Hi everyone! Hope you enjoyed that...the next chapter won't be as long coming. Anyone get the Indy ref.?  
**

**Thanks, as usual, to everyone who left a review, it makes me squee with delight every time one appears in my inbox... **


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